
JBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF GEORGIA. 



Fredericksburg, (Va.,) August 29, 1840. 

On my way to the Indian Springs to meet such of my fellow-citizens as 
might comply with the invitation to be present at a dinner to be given to 
our Senators and three of our Represeiitatives in Congress, on the 2d of 
September, I am detained here by a painful disorder, incompatible with 
the prosecution of my journey. In my own judgment, the detention is of 
no importance except to myself, as I cannot presume that my presence or 
absence will in the slightest degree affect the opinions and actions of any of 
the persons who may compose that assemblage. I regret it, nevertheless, 
as I am deprived of an opportunity to meet valued friends, and am unable 
to do that which others for whom 1 entertain a strong affection, and whose 
prudence and good sense give weight to their recommendations, have 
thought would be useful in the present agitated state of our country. 

I have seen nothing to shake my confidence in the power of truth ; nothing 
to make m^ doubt the futility of all attempts to delude the people by inge- 
nious equivocations, artful exaggerations, blustering pretensions, or open 
falsehoods. When the spirit of mquiry is awakened, the people are not to 
be turned from the pursuit of facts by processions and parades, by travel- 
ling oratois and ballad singers, by fiddlings and revelries. A careful in- 
vestigation of those facts, and calm reflection upon them at home, give to the 
humblest citizen the power to decide wisely in whose hands the Chief Ma- 
gistracy of the nation can be safely intrusted for the preservation of external 
peace, and a perpetuation of those domestic institutions with which are in- 
separably connected the harmony of the Union, and prosperity, national 
and individual. These will be used, and, being used, the result will be 
right. If it were necessary or proper, I could bear ray humble testimony 
to the fidelity with which the declared opinions of the present incumbent 
have been acted upon. Necessary it is not, since the chief ground of ob- 
jection to him is, that he has perfortned his engagements, and " followed in 
the footsteps of his predecessor." Proper it will not be considered, as I have 
been intimately associated with his administration, and identified in feeling 
and judgment with the great measures of its fiscal and foreign policy, and. 
would be looked upon as a volunteer and interested witness. Instead, 
therefore, of speaking what I know and believe to be jnst of Mr. Van Bii- 
ren and of General Harrison, I will use the right of every member of the 
community, to refer to things of common notoriety, which will aid my fel- 
low-citizens in Georgia in discovering to which of these persons they may 
safely confide the Executive power, as it may influence or control the great 
questions — 

Of a protective tariff ; 

Of internal improvements ; 

Of appropriation and expenditure; 

Of the mode of keeping and disbursing the public funds ; 

Of slavery, as it exists from the northern confines of Maryland to the Sa- 
bine and Red rivers. 

(Q.uestions of foreign policy are omitted, for, strange to say, they are not 
topics in the Presidential canvass, and on that subject the advocates of uni- 
versal reform intend to make no change.) 



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On these questions the opinions of Mr, Van Bnren and General Harrison 
have been in various forms and at different periods asked for. Wluit their 
answers were, at what time and in what manner ^nven, are well known 
facts. My fellow-citizens can readily decide, with these facts in view, 
which of these gentlemen agrees with them on these important and vital 
subjects. By comparing the explicit, frank, prompt, public, and uniform 
communicaiions of Mr. Van Buren, given with like readiness to friend or 
foe, with the reluctant, equivocal, and not unirequently contradictory givings 
out of General Harrison— sometimes by reference to former declarations, 
sometimes by letters from triends and friendly committees; again by 
speeches at arranged meetings, and then by private letters for use but 
not 'publication — they can, without difficulty, determine which of them de- 
serves their confidence. Should any doubt remain, after this comparison, 
there are two other facts not Jinworlhy to be remembered in forming a cor- 
rect judgment : Mr. Van Buren has imputed to him by his advocates every 
where, the same opinions and the same principles ; the opinions and prin- 
ciples imputed to General Harrison by his friends and supporters are variant 
and contrasted — chameleon like, they take their hues from the objects upon 
which they rest while you are called upon to examine them, and show a 
color to suit the region where they are presented to view. 

Should the belief be entertained that the declarations of the parties them- 
selves, or those of friends anxious to promote their success, are not safe 
guides, the motive to concealment, equivocation, or deception being so 
powerful, try the parties by the cTperimeniiwi crucis. 

In various stations each has been before the public for more than thirty 
years. Compare their professions with their acts, and then the results of 
each comparison. If still not satisfied, there are other broad facts that can- 
not fail to bring couviction to the honestly inquiring mind. A better 
judgment of tlie probable conduct of an administration in this country is to 
be formed by looking at the partie's by whom its chief is brought forward, 
and by whom he will be supported if ih !y succeed, than by a scrutiny into 
the particular opinions and political course of the person who is proposed 
for that station. Mr. Van Buren is the candidate of that party in all the 
States, who, under the lead of» General Jackson, arrested the gigantic 
and mad scheme of universal internal improvement — who wrested the pub- 
He money from the hands of irresponsible and doubtful corporations, and 
broke their power — who seek to reduce duties and taxes to the wants of 
the Government — and who believe that these wants admit of diminutions 
of the public expenditure ; of a party every where arrayed against Abolition, 
and ready, at all hazards and at all times, to see that the constitutional 
guaranty of Southern property is fairly and faithfully maintained. He is 
equally acceptable to that party in the Southern, Western, Eastern, and 
Middle States — has been forced upon neither by combinations or intrigues. 

General Harrison is the candidate of all the parties in the United States 
who can be brought to act against the present Administration by the com- 
mon instinct of hatred. He was forced upon the southern portion of these 
parlies by the combination of Anti-masonry and Abolitionism. Not one 
Southern vote was given to him in the Harrisburg convention. Among his 
supporters are ranked the high tariff and internal improvement men, under 
the banners of Mr. Clay ; the high-toned politician of the New England 
States — who construe the Constitution like the common law, which, con- 
tracted as it may seem, expands indefinitely according to the supposed ex- 
igency of the times — who beheve there is no safety or prosperity with- 
out the agency of a National Bank to manage the fiscal concerns of the 



Governrnfnt, and furnish a currency for the people — who opposed the late 
war, and estiiblKshed, according lo opinions expressed in the British Par- 
liament, a sort of understood nentrality with the enemy during its contin- 
uance — who ncknowledo;e as their leader and standard-bearer, Mr. Webster, 
of Boston : tfie Aboliiionists, of all colors, under Slade of Vermont, Seward 
and Bradish, Governor and Lieutenant Governor of New York, under 
whose auspices a deliberate attempt has been made, by State legislation, to 
evade that provision of the Federal Constitution which was adopted for the 
protection of Southern ri^^hts: the Conservatives, under the guidance of 
Mr, Rives, who have abandoned their former friends because the keys of 
the vaults where the public treasure is deposited are kept in the pockets of 
officersof Government, and not by cashiers of State banks; and who predict 
ruin and desolation to the country because that treasure can no longer, under 
the control of all sorts of State bank directors, be made the basis of loans to 
stimulate every species of corporation lolly or private speculation : a frag- 
ment of the NuUifiers, under Mr. Preston and General Waddy Thompson, 
who have been whirled, like atoms of dust, from the chariot wheels of 
South Carolina, as they rolled into their ancient tracks in the ranks of 
Democracy. 

The supporters of the General in Georgia, I need not designate. They 
are known — what they have been, what they are, and what they wish to 
be. Some of them have had, and have lost, popular confidence ; some 
yet enjoy it; and they unite in their endeavors — the one to recover, the 
other to retain, popular favor. To effect their common object, they are 
closely allied to politicians whose principles they have solenmly rejected; 
whose conduct they have repeatedly denoiuiced ; whose objects they have 
always professed to abhor. If there is any truth in the maxim oi iioscitur 
a sociis, it will not be very dilhcult to decide, from this array of his friends, 
what reliance can be placed on General Harrison by Georgians. 

The only Chief Magistrate to whom the Southern States can safely trust 
themselves, is one who will use the influence of his place wisely to lead con- 
gressional le^jislation on the sul>jects that must arise for discussion within the 
coming presidential term— the apportionment of representation, the system of 
revenue, the admission of new States into the Union ; and one who will use 
his power fearlessly and fully to control all attempts at legislation on that 
subject which is exclusively Southern, On this there can be no parley, 
for it admits of no compromise. Those who agitate it, do evil, whatever 
be their pretences or their motives. Those who associate, combine, and 
act with those ai^itators, must look to have the finger of suspicion pointed 
at them. No Southern man, who will read dispassionately the address to 
the people of the slaveholding States, and the accompanying evidence, from 
the democratic members of Congress from those States, can have any 
excuse for mistaking his duty when he acts on this question. To the im- 
bodied evidence presented of the movements within the United States of 
the disturbers of Southern repose, may be usefully added a reference to 
what is going on abroad. The Government of Great Britain, which has 
always permitted the Canadas to be the asylum of runaway slaves, has, 
within a few years, converted all its West India possessions into places of 
refuge for them, and has formally declared that no claim for them will be 
availing, although they reach their possessions by fraud or violence. The 
same Government has been lately employing itself as the volunteer or se- 
lected agent of the Pope, in presenting an apostolic letter on slavery to 
some of the Spanish American States — a letter which it is not at all im- 
probable was prepared under influences proceeding from the British isles. 



4 

Under its convention with Spain respecting the slave trade, it has com- 
missioners m Havana scrutinizing inio the commercial pursuits of all na- 
tions, atjd marking all vessels, not British, bound to the coast of Africa, as 
suspected of the slave trade, when loaded with cargoes which are lawful 
commerce in Engli&h vessels from Sierra Leone to tviy parts of the slave 
coast from whence the slave factories are supplied with them. It has 
black regiments in its service in the Canadas and in the West Indies. 
It is filling up the ranks of its army by the enlistment of recaptured 
Africans. Some of the statesmen and pamphleteers of England are en- 
gaged, since emancipation in the West Indies has diminished the pro- 
ductive value of their West India islands, in devising schemes to give a 
present preference in their markets to the productions oi free labor, (like 
that in British India!) and gradually to exclude from them the products 
of the labor of slaves. Of the temper and intentions of the agitators 
of the question of slavery, and the means to be employed, abundant 
evidences are afforded in the proceedings of the " World's Convention," 
which met in London on the 12th, and continued until the 23d, of last 
June. Two resolutions were unanimously adopted, too significant to re- 
quire much comment. Those resolutions denounce the removal of slaves 
from the old to the new States as an tnirighteous traffic, of which eighty 
thousand are annually victims ; as exciting detestation. Surprise and ab- 
horrence are acknowledged, that it should be protected and cherished by 
this Government. That it involves hardness of heart in the traders, and 
cruelty to the negroes, is asserted ; and that effectual means should be im- 
mediately taken to remove this stain from the character of this nation. 
Was there ever such a compound of ignorance, folly, and insolence? The 
brutal O'Connell was quite at home in such a convention ; and his insults 
to the representative of a foreign Government near his own, his vitupera- 
tion of two of our eininent public men, were quite in harmony with the 
occasion. The transportation of our property from Virginia to Louisiana, 
the internal slave trade, mark you, is " unrighteous," and effectual means 
ought to be taken in the United States forthwith to remove the stain from 
this nation. What are these means? We can guess. First, prohibition 
by Congress of the transportation of slaves by land or by sea from one 
State to another; next, a prohibition of the sale of slaves by one man to 
another in the same State; and then we shall be ripe for either the late Mr. 
Rufus King's or General Harrison's plan of gradual emancipation ; the 
Government purchase of the blacks by the proceeds of the public lands, or 
by the use of the surplus revenue — taxes and duties being properly in- 
creased to make that surplus large enough to effectuate the object. 

The shadows of the troubles hi store for us, at home and abroad, are 
darkening and stealing upon us. What note of preparation is heard? 
What measures of precaution are required ? The gravest thought and 
most anxious deliberation are demanded, to meet the dangers which will 
sooner or later come. What others may persuade themselvts should be 
done, I cannot tell ; but no step would seem to be better ada{)ted to bring 
them upon us at an early day, and when we shall be utterly destitute of 
preparation, than placing the power of the General Government in the 
hands of the heterogeneous coalition that now seek to obtain it in the • 
person of one tvithout the requisite qualifications for the Chief Magistrate 
of a great republic, and who is accused, with too much appearance of 
truth, of having, in a public address, engaged, if elected, not to thwart Con- 
gress by the use of the veto power. 



The veto power ! a portion of the authority given to the Executive by 
the wise framers of our Government, which the incumbent ot the Pres- 
idential chair can neither surrender nor trammel himself in the exercise of, 
without personal dishonor and treachery to the Constitution. The veto 
power ! the safeguard of the people against improvident legislation, or con- 
gressional encroachment on the rights of the States and of the co-ordinate 
branches of the Government. The veto power ! the ark of safety for the 
southern States; used for then?, it is impossible, while the equality of senatorial 
representation remains, and the present relative proportion of the slave 
States is preserved, for the phrenzy of fanaticism and the recklessness of 
associated party profligacy to disturb our repose, or assail our firesides, 
under the sanction of congressional enactments. 

Mr. Van Buren is pledged to use it for that purpose — General Harrison 
is not. 

JOHN FORSYTH. 



APPENDIX 



State of the vote at the Harrisburg Convention. 

As there will be natural anxiety to know precisely how the delegations 
from the various States voted, we have obtained, in an authentic shape, 
the following statement, showing the result of the first ballot in the Com- 
mittee of States. 



Maine 

New Hampshire 

Massachusetts 

Connecticut - 

Rhode Island 

New York 

New Jersey 

Pennsylvania 
1^ Delaware 
^Maryland 
"'Virginia 

North Carolina 

Alabama 

Louisiana 

Mississippi 

Kentucky 

Indiana 

Ohio 

Missouri 

Michigan 

Vermont 

Illinois 



Result of the first ballot. 

Harrison. 
10 
7 
14 



30 



Clay 



3 

10 

23 

15 

7 

5 

4 

15 



9 
21 

(divided.) 



Scott, 



42 
8 



91 



103 



57 



The vote first given for General Harrison never was reduced. After 
several biillotiiigs had occurred, Connecticut changed her vote from Mr. 
Clay to Gpner;tl Scott; and Michignn (the third delegate having arrived) 
cast her vote in hke maimer : making Scott's vote 68, and reducing Mr. 
Clay's to 95. On the final and decisive vote, New York, Michigan, and 
Vermont changed from Scott, and IHinois from Clay, and voted for Harri- 
son. — American. 



Apostolical Letter of our Most Holy Lord, Gregory XVI, by Divine Pro- 
videtice, Po/je, against the traffic in negroes. {De negritanim commer- 
cio non exercendo.) 

Rome. 
From the press oj the Rev. Apost. Chamber, 1839. 

POPE GREGORY XVI. 
For future commemoration. 

Placed on the snmmit of apostolical power, and through no merits of 
our own. Vicegerent of Jesus Christ the Son of God, who through his ex- 
ceeding love became man and vouchsafed to die for the redemption of the 
world, we deem that it becomes our pastoral solicitude that we should seek 
to turn the faithful altogether from the unfeeling traffic in negroes, or any 
other human beings. Verily, when the light of the Gospel first began to 
diffuse itself, those unfortunate men, who, by occasion of so many wars had 
fallen into cruel servitude, felt their condition among Christians very much 
alleviated. Inspired, indeed, by the Divine Spirit, the Apostles taught 
servants to render obedience to their masters in the flesh, as unto Christ, 
and to do the will of God with a cheerful mind; yet they commanded also 
unto masters that they should use their servants kindly, that they should 
render unto them what is just and right, and that they should not employ 
threats, remembering that the God of both is in heaven, and that with 
Him there is no respect of persons. Since, then, true charity towards all 
men is everywhere strongly mculcated by the evangelical law, and Christ 
our Lord has declared, that whatever kindness or mercy is rendered or 
denied to the v/eak or the indigent, he will consider as rendered or denied 
unto himself, it is clear that not only should Christians regard their Chris- 
tian servants in the light of brothers, but also that they should humble 
themselves before those who are worthy to be free ; which, indeed, Gregory 
Nyssenus indicates to have been customary, at first, upon the occasion of 
the solemnities of Easter. Nor were those wanting, who, animated by a 
more ardent charity, delivered themselves into bonds that they might re- 
deem others ; of whom the Apostle testifies that he knew many, as also our 
predecessor Clement I, of most holy memory. Tlierefore, in the progress 
of time, when the darkness of heathenish superstitions was entirely dissi- 
pated, and the manners of uncivilized races had been mollified by the be- 
neficent influence of that faith which worketh through love, for successive 
ages, no slaves existed among many Christian nations. Yet, truly, we are 
grieved to say that afterwards, even among the number of the faithful, 
there were those who, shamefully blinded by the lust of sordid lucre, in 
scattered and remote lands reduced Indians, negroes, and other unfortunate 
beings, into slavery; or, the traffic in those who had been made captive by 



others havlni^ been commenced and aucrmented, did not hesitate to encou- 
rage or profit by such unworthy actions. Several of the Roman pontifTs, 
our predecessors, did not, indeed, fail to reprehend severely, by virtue of 
their office, the course of these as noxious to their own salvation, and op- 
probrious to the Christian name; from which they beheld as a consequence 
the nations of the unfaithful confirmed in their animosity to our true reli- 
g\on. To which things relate the apostolic letter of Paul HI, ^iven on the 
29th of May, 1537, under the rino; of the F'isherman, to the Cardinal Arch- 
bishop of Toledo : and another, and ampler, of Urban VllI, given on the 
22d of April, 1639, to the Collector of the Laws of the Apostolic Chamber 
in Portugal ; in which letters they are gravely rebuked, by name, ivho reduce 
into slavery western or southern Indians, who buy, sell, exchange., or give 
them away, separate them from their wives and cJdldren, despoil them of 
their goods or possessions, carry or send theni to other regions, or in 
any mwtner deprive them of their liberty, retain them i?i servitude, or render 
counsel, favor., or assistance to those who are guilty of such acts, wider 
any pretext or color whatever ; or presume to teach or preach the same to 
be lawful, or in any manner co-operate therewith. 

These decrees of Pontiffs to be ever held in remembrance, Benedict 
XIV subsequently confirmed and renewed, in a new apostolical letter to 
the prelates of Brazil and certain other regions, given on the 20th Decem- 
ber, 1741, in which he stimulated their vigilant solicitude throughout the 
bounds of tlieir ecclesiastical districts. Before this, however, a more ancient 
of our predecessors, Pius II, when, in his day, the power of the Portuguese 
was extended to Guinea, the region of the negroes, gave a letter, on the 7th 
October, 1462, to the bishop about to proceed thither, in which he not only 
granted to this prelate all the faculties opportune for the exercise of tlie 
holy ministry with greater fruit, but, on the same occasion, gravely rebuked 
those Christians who carried away converts into slavery. And also, in our 
own times, Pius VII, impelled by the same spirit of religion and charity 
which animated his predecessors, employed his influence assiduously with 
the powerful, that (he traffic in negroes might, at length, altogether cease 
among Christians. These decrees and eflorts of our predecessors did, in- 
deed, avail not a little, by the grace of God, in protecting the Indians, and 
others referred to, from the cruelty of invaders, (»r the cupidity of Christian 
merchants ; not so much, however, that this holy see can rejoice in the 
full accomplishment of its desires ; since the traffic in negroes, although 
diminished in some parts, is still practised by many Christians. Where- 
fore, we, desiring to avert so great a reproach from all the borders of Chris- 
tianity, and the whole matter, a council of some of our venerable brethren the 
Cardinals being called, having been duly weighed, walking in the footsteps 
of our predecessors, by our apostolical authority, admonish and conjure, 
earnestly in the Lord, the faithful oi Christ, of every condition, that here- 
after they do not. unjustly molest Indians, negroes, or any other race of men, 
nor spoil them of their goods, nor reduce them into slavery, nor render 
countenance or assistance to those guilty of such practices; nor carry on 
that inhuman commerce by which negroes, as though they were not men, 
but mere brutes, held in any manner of servitude, without distinction, 
against the laws of justice and humanity, are bought, sold, and devoted to 
cruel and sometimes intolerable labor; and, moreover, through the love of 
gain held out to the first possessors of the negroes, dissensions and perpetual 
wars fomented throughout the regions which they inhabit. Verily, all these 
practices, as altogether unworthy of the Christian name, we reprobate by 
our apostolical authority ; and by the same authority we strictly prohibit 



15 

and interdict any ecclesiastic or layman from defending the traffic in ne- 
groes as lawful, under any pretence whatever, and from presuming to 
preach, or in anywise teach, in public or private, any thing at variance 
with the admonitions contained in this apostolical letter. 

And in order that this letter may be more readily known to all, and that 
no man may plead ignorance of it, we decree and order that, as is the usage, 
it be published, and copies of it remain affixed on the doors of the church 
of the Prince of the Apostles, and of the Apostolical Chamber, and of the 
General Court in Monte Cetatario, (fee, by one of our messengers. 

Given at Rome, in the church of Santa Maria Magcriore, ulider the rin<^ 
of the Fisherman, on the 3d day of December, 1839, of our pontificate the 
ninth year. 

ALOISIUS CARD, LAMBRUSCHINL 



General Anti Slavery Convention, called by the committee of the British 
and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society ; held in London on the 12th June, 
1840, and continued by adjournment to the 23d of the same month. 

The following resolutions were passed unanimously : 

Resolved That this convention has heard with deep regret and sorrow of the extent to which 
he internal slave-trade is carried on from the older to the more newly settled slave States of 
traffic"'"''^^'^ Union— to the extent of upwards of 80,000 victims annualiy to this unrighteous 

Resolved, That in expressing their detestation of this traffic, and in acknowled£rin<r that it 
excites their deep surprise and abhorrence that it should be protected and cherished by a nation 
which has abolished the African slave trade, and declared it to be piracy; this convention is 
impressed with the conviction that such a systematic trade in man must be attended with 
excessive cruelty and wrong to the objects of it, and involves la its prosecution a ioarlul extent 
of barbarity and hardness ot hean on the part of the man-trader, and that effectual means 
ought o be forthwith taken m the United States of America to remove this stain from the 
character oi the nation. 



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